[Closed] WWII Dornier bomber

I'm sure the Germans would love to have it, but it was in our coastal waters, and we raised it.
A few cans of WD40 will put it right, that's for sure. Now, if they can only find a Ju-82 Stuka...

Real life Airfix collection.

According to an article in the Telegraph : [i] The aircraft is said to be in “remarkable condition”. Other than the effects of the sea, such as barnacles, coral and marine life, it is largely intact.[/i] And they publish this photo :

[img] [/img]

Now I'm no expert but that doesn't look like an aircraft in “remarkable condition” to me. It looks like a total wreck.

They then go on to say : [i]The main undercarriage tyres remain inflated but the propellers clearly show the damage inflicted during the bomber’s fateful final landing, experts have said. [/i]

Yeah right. It's those damaged propellers that are a dead giveaway.

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10111792/Last-surviving-German-bomber-lifted-off-bottom-of-the-Channel.html ]Last surviving German bomber lifted off bottom of the Channel[/url]

What happened to the umpteen Spitfire's than were found buried underneath that runway in Burma?

I imagine that bomber will get dropped off at a local Essex garage and it will be 'cut and shut' back to its former glory in a week.

Apparently the Spitfires in Burma did not exist and the operations been called off.

Pfft that'll polish right out.

I bet in the vast expanses of Russia there are lots of basically mint German planes, tanks etc. Youtube/Russia turns loads up

Does seem like a lot of money for a hunk of metal. It's not like we don't have other WWII aircraft in museums. Mind you on the subject of celebrating war and wasting money i hear the culture secretary has 4 years of events planned to remember WWI. Not sure that's justified or healthy.

WWI should be remembered and for the right reasons. A hideous waste of youth. Everyone should visit Tyne Cot once.

Putting aside the morality of war for a moment, events like this serve to remind us that the attrocities of WW2 are still in living memory. Never forget is so apt.

Not reading of any bodies recovered, I assume the crew bailed-out?

Two dead and buried elsewhere, two survived as POWs

[i]Ju-82 Stuka[/i]

[spotting nerd]
Stuka was Ju 87
[\spotting nerd]

Mind you on the subject of celebrating war and wasting money i hear the culture secretary has 4 years of events planned to remember WWI. Not sure that's justified or healthy.

Around [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties ]16.5 MILLION[/url] people died in WW1. And it massively shaped the world we live in today.

That's justification enough I'd say, as long as any events focus on the horrendous cost of war to all sides.

[quote=GrahamS ]
Around 16.5 MILLION people died in WW1. And it massively shaped the world we live in today.
That's justification enough I'd say, as long as any events focus on the horrendous cost of war to all sides.
And the likelihood of that is? Still, better that a government stirs up national sentiment in order to gain re-election by using a previous war than going and starting a new one.

To be fair though, I think any govt of any party would be marking the centenary of WW1.

Still, better that a government stirs up national sentiment in order to gain re-election by using a previous war than going and starting a new one.

UH?

You think stirring up national sentiment about a war that's nearly 100 years old is going to get the Govt re-elected?

Sorry, serious fail on your joined up thinking there Sir..

It wasn't a glorious war. It was horrible. Carnage and disgusting waste of lives. Its an anti-ad for war. It should be repeated and played to school children rather than the fancy Army or RAF-ads that you see now that make it look like fun.

scotroutes - Member

better that a government stirs up national sentiment in order to gain re-election by using a previous war than going and starting a new one.

mrlebowski - Member

UH?

You think stirring up national sentiment about a war that's nearly 100 years old is going to get the Govt re-elected?

Sorry, serious fail on your joined up thinking there Sir..

(to me at least) it's not completely unlike a strategy being used by that charming Scottish fella who's name sounds a bit like one of these:

[img] [/img]

On another note- from the sonar etc and the subsequent raising it looks like its broken up a fair bit once they started lifting.

hora - Member

WWI should be remembered and for the right reasons. A hideous waste of youth. Everyone should visit Tyne Cot once.

I agree wholeheartedly.

One particular inscription ends 'I did my best. Please remember me.'
😐

I think about that place often.

raising it looks like its broken up a fair bit once they started lifting.

According to the OP's link :

[i]"The operation has been an absolute success, the aircraft looks great...." [/i]

Its worth note that the plane is upside down. (I had not spotted that until I watched the video)

Anyhow, I think its great they have lifted it.

Rusty I cried there. I couldn't help it. It was the recorded reading of the names on repeat outside the visitors centre that set me off. That and the simple realisation that I was stood in a graveyard where none had died of old age.

Its worth note that the plane is upside down

Of course! If I turn my display over then it looks in much better condition. 🙂

rather than the fancy Army or RAF-ads that you see now that make it look like fun.

..and you can kill the enemy whilst sat in a nice warm Ops office totally out of arms-way.

Ends of the wings broke off as it was being lifted - if they had remained intact it would have looked a lot better. Maybe they'll bring those up as well.

A Stuka was a Ju87 was it not?

Ju88 was the twin engined bomber (that could also used as a dive bomber) which was used in the Battle of Britain with the He111 and the Do17.

Ju 82 didn't exist. The 88 series was also extended to some very cool-looking planes, most of which didn't make much of an impact (other than the Ju 188). See Ju 188, Ju 288, Ju 388 and Ju 488.

Now if someone could find something like an Arado AR234 (with the backward firing cannon) that would be very cool.

I think scotroutes may have been referring to the Falklands non-war

Do they have war museums in Germany I've never been lucky enough to visit.

I don't think they remember/celebrate it with the same fervour we do, went to Munich once to various palaces/museums and it tended they tended to concentrate on how they looked after the bombings and how they'd rebuilt it to their former glory.

As for what happened, I don't think they want to advertise it TBH.

As an aside why all the D-Day programme's this week, yes I know it's an anniversary but 59 isn't a significant figure.

69 is a more interesting number though 😉

As an aside why all the D-Day programme's this week, yes I know it's an anniversary but 59 isn't a significant figure.

I think what is significant is that there is an ever dwindling number of D-Day veterans. Recognising their achievements, and remembering the ultimate sacrifices their comrades made on the beaches of Normandy, probably seems more appropriate now as they become frail and less likely to see another anniversary than when they were relatively young and healthy and plentiful in number. imo

Believed to be the only intact example of its kind in the world

What is the point it is basically wrecked and ruined. It wont so much be repaired as rebuilt
Pointless IMHO

I wasn't suggesting WWI shouldn't be remembered, quite the opposite, but 4 years of events announced up front smacks of milking it for their own ends as suggested above. I've been to some of the cemeteries in Burma, very sobering, looking at the ages of those buried there was quite shocking.

Personally I think we should remember the end of the war properly in 4 years time, not celebrate the anniversary of it's start and each famous slaughter in between.

I have never know WW1 to be remembered in terms of celebrations. In my experience the focus is always on the appalling loss of life, the horrific conditions in the trenches/frontline, the futile offensives ordered by callous generals, and the cruel execution of young men suffering from shell shock/post traumatic stress.

I can't see any evidence to suggest that for the first time in a hundred years WW1 will be [i]celebrated.[/i]

And as for the claim that politicians will milk the anniversary of WW1 to gain popularity, well that's just bizarre.

WW1 is a reminder of national stupidity, not national pride.

One particular inscription ends 'I did my best. Please remember me.'

That's possibly the most moving thing anyone's ever repeated on STW.

WW1 is a reminder of national stupidity, not national pride.

I'm 'glad' in a way that everywhere you go there is a monument (very often put up at the expense of the local community) with the names of the WWI local lads lost. Even in small villages you can see the names and the effects it must have had on the community.

Without these it'd be very easy for those to slip away from our thoughts wouldn't it?

Most certainly not of national pride. Sending men over the top at walking pace in the face of chattering machine guns.

[i]Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?[/i]

Lyrics from the green fields of France, the last 4 lines I find especially sad. I am taking pupils to Belgium next year, including some who could never afford it thanks to the grant given to every school in Britain. From that point of view, I am glad that the aniversary is being marked. There will never be anything like visiting a war grave to explain more powerfully the cost of war in a far more eloquent way than any book ever could.

Agreed. Seeing the WW2 cemeteries on the Normandy coast is poignant. There are some places where history hangs heavy in the air.

Makes me tingle everytime I see these powerful words

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen; Jings Hora, you're full of suprises.

Yeah I thought that, but we cant be more than 24 hours away from a new frame thread.

Ju-82 Stuka

[spotting nerd]
Stuka was Ju 87
[\spotting nerd]

There will never be anything like visiting a war grave to explain more powerfully the cost of war in a far more eloquent way than any book ever could.

Load of gobby teenagers messing around sneaking out to get pissed.
however after 3 days touring cemeteries and seeing the size of the graveyards and then realising it was just ones days battle
on the last night we went to the Menin gate at Ypres and heard the last post.
there was not a dry eye in there even as teenagers.

Made me a life long pacifist as what a waste of life that all was.....the scale is unimaginable tbh
here are just some of the names of those who passed one way through those gates
[img] [/img]
[img] http://www.cwgc.org/dbImage.ashx?id=98 [/img]

Never ever forget

Aye JY; I run a trip to Poland via Germany every two years, decided to come back and stay in Ypres this time. The Menin gate ceremony I have seen twice and both coincided with it getting very dusty.

Just as well there weren't many "pacifists" about in 1939 then

might have helped if the german nation had been made up of them as well

Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-l'Abbe, France. The final resting place of my Great Uncle Battery Quartermaster Sergeant W. H. Brown, awarded the Military Medal for continuing to perform his duties despite being fatally wounded whilst serving with the 30th Battery, XXXIX Brigade, attached to 1st Division Royal Field Artillery during WWI.

[img] [/img]

In July 1916, during the first days of the Battle of the Somme, the Casualty Clearing Stations at Heilly were closest to the battlefield, but the last on the route taken by ambulance trains on their journey taking casualties back to hospital. At the peak time of 1st to 4th July 1916 they admitted thousands of men, but the shortage of trains meant that no casualties could be evacuated from the Casualty Clearing Stations for more than 72 hours. During that time, the death toll at Heilly was so great, that to save both time and space, men were often buried on top of each other, three to a grave. As there was so little room on each headstone for three names, the regimental badges of the soldiers had to be omitted, and instead the insignia of those men appear in Portland stone plaques set into a cloister and screen wall at one end of the cemetery.

Just as well there weren't many "pacifists" about in 1939 then

I'm not sure if the US isolationists pre-Pearl Harbor can be described as "pacifists". And it was Britain and France who declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, not the other way round.

I'd like to think I'd have been a conscientious objector in the first lot, but a volunteer in the second.
But that's romantic bullshit and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

My dad was involved in Norway, Burma & India during WW2, ending up as an artillery officer on 25 pounders attached to the Indian Army.

He was a lifelong socialist and his experiences convinced him of the futility of war and the non-existance of a god.

However, he was very vocal regarding the pressures on young people to join up pre 1939.
He was in the Territorials before the war - 'a logical extention of the Scouts for a Grammar School boy with an interest in the outdoors'.
He and his friends were brought up on the romantic war stories of previous generations and had little idea of the horror awaiting them.

We know more about the experiences of those in the trenches during WW1 than their children did.

He refused to go to Korea, despite a nicely worded invite from HM Govt.

He always maintained that television was a wonderful invention because, unlike the photography pioneered in the Boer War, it was truly democratic & enabled people to genuinely see the horrors of war and understand the propoganda for the crock of shite it was and still is.

Anyway, sorry for the long post.
It seemed relevant when I started it.

Mind you on the subject of celebrating war and wasting money i hear the culture secretary has 4 years of events planned to remember WWI. Not sure that's justified or healthy.

Maybe they should use the word Cemmemorate

Maybe they should use the word Cemmemorate

Or even "commemorate"?

[quote=ernie_lynch ]I have never know WW1 to be remembered in terms of celebrations. In my experience the focus is always on the appalling loss of life, the horrific conditions in the trenches/frontline, the futile offensives ordered by callous generals, and the cruel execution of young men suffering from shell shock/post traumatic stress.
I can't see any evidence to suggest that for the first time in a hundred years WW1 will be celebrated.
And as for the claim that politicians will milk the anniversary of WW1 to gain popularity, well that's just bizarre.
WW1 is a reminder of national stupidity, not national pride.
[img] [/img]

He and his friends were brought up on the romantic war stories of previous generations and had little idea of the horror awaiting them.

It's odd, perhaps it's because my grandfather and his brothers were army kids (great grandfather was lucky to survive Ypres wounds) but none of them had any illusions when they went to war. 9 marched away, 5 of them were front-line soldiers for the entire war and all 9 came back physically whole much to the surprise of everyone. Mentally, 3 of them never really came to terms with what they'd seen or done though and never spoke of their war, except to their brothers the first year after they demobbed.

One, the youngest, lied about his age and went to North Africa at 16. His stories are horrific (starting WW1 era charges at German machine guns in the early days) and he's a surprisingly well balanced and happy man considering what he's seen and particularly what he's done. I think he's one of those rare people who thrives in those situations (one of those 15% who actually shoot to kill).

I think seeing war cemeteries is useful for children to understand the scale of things. It's also important, I believe, to show children the cemeteries of the enemy dead to humanise the cost on both sides. It's far too easy these days to assume that if we can kill with no risk to ourselves, it's okay. Even today, seeing the white crosses at the US cemetery on my ride (Patton is actually buried there) and the German one nearby, brings home the terrible losses for all countries involved, particularly as they find remains every year in the forests and still keep adding to the plots.